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Seth Sandronsky's blog

by Seth Sandronsky

If Kevin Johnson is “progressive,” then the term has become meaningless. The Sacramento mayor and charter school champion, husband of privatization zealot Michelle Rhee, has bought into the corporate argument that meaningful hikes in the minimum wage harm the economy, including the lowest paid workers. In the short term, he wants to “study” the issue to death.

by Seth Sandronsky

The Black mayor of Sacramento, California, claims he runs an Opportunity City. But Kevin Johnson solicits big dollars from Wal-Mart, the anti-union megacorp, which is also a sponsor of his wife, Michelle Rhee, the fire-breathing hit-woman for school privatization. Opportunities for whom?

Charter school operators and their political servants make bogus claims of educational gains – claims that are often passed along as fact by supposedly reputable media. Sacramento mayor Kevin Johnson is a propagandist for privatization, and an ally of corporations that have a huge stake in undermining public schools. “It is vital to follow the money on issues such as public education.”

Republicans are often champions of private school vouchers, but Democratic politicians – including President Obama – have been central to the phenomenal expansion of public charter schools. Not coincidentally, multibillionaires have become huge patrons of charters, at the same time that massive cuts in school spending have made public schools less attractive. “Tumult plus big dollars from the wealthiest families in the country nurtures the growth of public charter schools.”

The Weather Underground waged armed struggle against the U.S. state and “white skin privilege” – a war that put David Gilbert in prison for life. “Gilbert’s memoir in part corrects the historical record with insights on fighting power and wealth with like-minded others for a more humane way of life for all.”

A review of How Race Survived US History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon, by David Roediger (Verso, hardcover, 2008). The author lays out the historical roots of modern American white supremacy, in which “lawmakers foment race-thinking to deepen white backlash against non-whites.”

If being white in America is "normal" then what are the rest of us? A recent Salt Lake City shopping mall shooting spree by a young white man described as "average"-looking once again reveals the "white-as-normative" syndrome as pervasive in American life. Inevitably, it seems, whites are shocked to witness insane, homicidal behavior by people that look like them, while appearing to anticipate in advance anti-social conduct from non-whites.

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